Okay-okay-okay. I know I owe you guys the details about Ireland! I haven't gotten around to typing it up yet! There's just so much to say. I am going to Greece tomorrow for 8 days as part of Fall break! So I will have a lot of catching up to do on the blog when I get home. I WILL get to it! Classes don't start back up until Nov. 2nd, so I promise pictures and everything I did will be up as soon as I got back. I also made a day trip to Chianti over this past weekend so I will put up some of that stuff too!! I'm so glad midterms are over with! I think I did really well on the exams so I can set off to Greece on the right foot! Corfu for a few days and then Athens!!
I won't really have solid internet access while I'm away so don't worry about checking up on me ;)
Keep you posted when I get back!!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Oktoberfest: Munich, Germany
Last weekend, a bunch of us set out for Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest. We went through Bus2alps again and boarded our bus Thursday night that drove about 9 hours through the night. At about 9 am the next morning, we arrived in Munich at the campground that we had all decided would be the most fun and cheapest way to go for the weekend. It was a really beautiful day, sunny and probably in the mid 70s. As we grabbed our bags off the bus and got ready to check in to the campsite, we were greeted by the craziest Australians I have ever met. Already drinking and passing us out welcome beers at 9am. I could already tell that this was going to be a VERY long weekend. We put everything in our tents and went over to the food tent where they were making breakfast. The Australians continued to drink and tell us about their breakfast specialty..."train smash" which was a mixture of eggs, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, salt & pepper (thank god) mixed up on a grill...and it was the first place we found ketchup in awhile. It was actually surprisingly decent!! I never would have thought about cooking something that...odd. I think we were also just happy to have found ketchup. haha but after breakfast we headed to Oktoberfest to kill time for the rest of the day, since it was going on about noon-1 o'clock already.
Entering the gates was really cool, I couldn't believe how much it was a like a state fair, yet the rides we're bigger, the food was better, the bathrooms were cleaner, and the beer tents were MUCH bigger! It was a really really awesome event! We immediately went and bought Bratwursts, I mean, How could we not? Then went straight for the beer gardens after realizing how expensive the rides were. We were very content with the beer gardens. It was a lot of fun singing and dancing and meeting a lot of cool people from all over the world! Later that evening we headed back to the campsite, had some dinner and went to bed. Luckily the tents were waterproof because it was freezing and pouring rain. It actually hailed at one point!!
Saturday we woke up to it still pouring but we woke up at around 6 am to get ready to go to the festival. On the weekends you have to be in a tent by 8 am because they start to close the doors very soon after, due to the mass amounts of people. We got there at 8 and we were able to get a standing table. All the other seats were taken. They closed the doors around 8:30 am and starting serving steins at 9. We were in for a long one! We met people from France, Spain, Germany, and Australia. Two couples from Germany who were probably in their mid 30's -40's were at our table with us. They had been to the west coast of the US but had not seen any of the east coast. There was a small language barrier but they're english was easy to work with. I spent a lot of time talking to them since I was on their end of the table. We sang lots of songs and the band was really awesome. The German couples even taught me the proper (at least pronunciation) wording to one of the songs that the band played. It sounded like "Allayyy... Allayyyy... Allay Allay Allay, Annashnotzay, Filebuoymeh, Yehynschkits, Allay Allayyyyy" - Sorry for not being able to put a tune on the blog. hahah But I learned, vaguely, that it has to do with a street and lots of trees in the middle of the street and as well on the sides. That's the best I could get out of them.
We left the tent around 4:30 that afternoon because once you are in, you will never be able to leave and get a table again. Plus the ladies won't serve you unless you are at a table. It was done raining which was nice. We were able to get what was probably the most amazing foot long hot dog of my life! Ketchup, mustard, onions...yeah the whole deal! haha and we shopped for a few souvenirs then went back to the campsite and hung out into the night.
Sunday morning, we all decided not to go back to Oktoberfest. A. because we were running low on cash and B. we wanted to go see the nearby concentration camp, Dachau, to be able to do something more meaningful. We were able to find a local bus that took us directly there. Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany in 1933. I have some pictures but I choose not to put them online. I don't think that would be very respectful. It was an amazing site to see. Good, in an educational sense, but awful to be able to set foot on such grounds. It was a very moving experience. The main building is now more of a museum but I was able to see where "prisoners" basically functioned throughout the day, even if they were near death. A lot of the buildings were creepy and I never thought that I would have been able to walk into such places. The Crematoriums and gas chambers had to have been the hardest to see. I have always heard so much about the Holocaust but seeing something like that in person throws you for a complete 360. It was heartbreaking to tell you the truth. I can't come up with words to describe how hard it was to imagine the Holocaust happening literally on the ground I was walking on. We didn't spend too much time there, just enough to get an idea of what it was like. Then we headed back to the campsite to return to Italy. I highly recommend visiting a concentration camp. It's very difficult but also a feeling that I really never fully understood until I was standing there.
Since then I have been concentrating on school and such. I'm sorry I haven't been up to date. I'll try harder with that. Before this weekend I will post A LOT about Ireland, which I went to this past weekend. It was my favorite trip BY FAR.
Entering the gates was really cool, I couldn't believe how much it was a like a state fair, yet the rides we're bigger, the food was better, the bathrooms were cleaner, and the beer tents were MUCH bigger! It was a really really awesome event! We immediately went and bought Bratwursts, I mean, How could we not? Then went straight for the beer gardens after realizing how expensive the rides were. We were very content with the beer gardens. It was a lot of fun singing and dancing and meeting a lot of cool people from all over the world! Later that evening we headed back to the campsite, had some dinner and went to bed. Luckily the tents were waterproof because it was freezing and pouring rain. It actually hailed at one point!!
Saturday we woke up to it still pouring but we woke up at around 6 am to get ready to go to the festival. On the weekends you have to be in a tent by 8 am because they start to close the doors very soon after, due to the mass amounts of people. We got there at 8 and we were able to get a standing table. All the other seats were taken. They closed the doors around 8:30 am and starting serving steins at 9. We were in for a long one! We met people from France, Spain, Germany, and Australia. Two couples from Germany who were probably in their mid 30's -40's were at our table with us. They had been to the west coast of the US but had not seen any of the east coast. There was a small language barrier but they're english was easy to work with. I spent a lot of time talking to them since I was on their end of the table. We sang lots of songs and the band was really awesome. The German couples even taught me the proper (at least pronunciation) wording to one of the songs that the band played. It sounded like "Allayyy... Allayyyy... Allay Allay Allay, Annashnotzay, Filebuoymeh, Yehynschkits, Allay Allayyyyy" - Sorry for not being able to put a tune on the blog. hahah But I learned, vaguely, that it has to do with a street and lots of trees in the middle of the street and as well on the sides. That's the best I could get out of them.
We left the tent around 4:30 that afternoon because once you are in, you will never be able to leave and get a table again. Plus the ladies won't serve you unless you are at a table. It was done raining which was nice. We were able to get what was probably the most amazing foot long hot dog of my life! Ketchup, mustard, onions...yeah the whole deal! haha and we shopped for a few souvenirs then went back to the campsite and hung out into the night.
Sunday morning, we all decided not to go back to Oktoberfest. A. because we were running low on cash and B. we wanted to go see the nearby concentration camp, Dachau, to be able to do something more meaningful. We were able to find a local bus that took us directly there. Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany in 1933. I have some pictures but I choose not to put them online. I don't think that would be very respectful. It was an amazing site to see. Good, in an educational sense, but awful to be able to set foot on such grounds. It was a very moving experience. The main building is now more of a museum but I was able to see where "prisoners" basically functioned throughout the day, even if they were near death. A lot of the buildings were creepy and I never thought that I would have been able to walk into such places. The Crematoriums and gas chambers had to have been the hardest to see. I have always heard so much about the Holocaust but seeing something like that in person throws you for a complete 360. It was heartbreaking to tell you the truth. I can't come up with words to describe how hard it was to imagine the Holocaust happening literally on the ground I was walking on. We didn't spend too much time there, just enough to get an idea of what it was like. Then we headed back to the campsite to return to Italy. I highly recommend visiting a concentration camp. It's very difficult but also a feeling that I really never fully understood until I was standing there.
Since then I have been concentrating on school and such. I'm sorry I haven't been up to date. I'll try harder with that. Before this weekend I will post A LOT about Ireland, which I went to this past weekend. It was my favorite trip BY FAR.
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